It’s either the last chance to rush delivery on gifts, or the first chance to start thinking about picking up some music tech projects for yourself to keep up with musical New Years’ Resolutions. Either way, it’s time to give a shout out to some of the great gift guides that have been going up around the Interwebs.

And nicely enough, there’s a strong emphasis on cheap and DIY projects, meaning these can be ideal even in tough economic times.

SX-150 button mod from Collin Cunningham on Vimeo.

MAKE: Blog > Music Makers’s Gift Guide

Assembled by our friend (and Handmade Music regular) Collin Cunningham, these are the geekiest DIY treasures you can find. I got hands-on with a couple of these recently. The plastic Theremin kit is fun, although you won’t get fantastic results out of it. My favorites: the awesome SX-150 synth kit (above), previously seen only in Japan, and the Thingamakit (which also got mentioned in our holiday guide). They’re both affordable and make some lovely sounds the moment you start using them, with hacks possible later.

For fans of the Arduino electronics/microcontroller platform, see Collin’s separate guide.

The monome didn’t make the guide this year, though it topped our list, but given that you have to basically preorder the moment a run is announced, that’s not exactly a slight.

wire to the ear > Five inexpensive Chistmas gifts for musicians

This small but neat selection is just perfect, I think, from the Moog schematic on a t-shirt (above) to flash memory earrings to Live sound packs from Puremagnetik.

Digital LoFi > The 2nd Annual Digital LoFi Holiday Gift Guide for the Disenfranchised

Digital LoFi has some fantastic selections: buy one, get-one-free offerings from Soniccouture (makers of fantastic Kontakt scripts, by the way), a pay-what-you-will EQ, and wonderful donationware plug-ins. The site also calls out CDM’s own Winter Guide print-on-demand – thanks!

Pt. I
Pt. II
Pt. III
Pt. IV

Honorable mention: The wacky scientists in residence at New York’s Eyebeam research center have introduced Hack Me Elmo. (Thanks, Chris Hahn!) That’s right: it’s a blockbuster holiday toy from years past, hacked into something very odd. Check out our own Mike Una’s how-to on circuit bending if you want to transform a toy into something musical and wonderful, also in our Winter ‘08 guide.

And yes, the rest is here:

It’s not animal-friendly, constructed of black leather and snakeskin, but it is fashion-forward. It’s Rucyl Mills’ over-the-shoulder, wearable MIDI controller, complete with pads, knobs and faders (looking mysteriously like they were liberated from an M-Audio Trigger Finger). Rucyl describes her creation:

I built the elektro-07 so I could control the sonic and visual parameters of my live performances without having to look deep into the eye of my laptop, hunched over in computer music stance. I’m still learning how to play it.. Software wise, it runs a maxMSP/Jitter patch smoothly, connected to my laptop by a long usb cable. Major thanks to Luke DuBois.

I have to agree: I’ve seen people with great stage presence hunched over laptops, but hunching is … well, uncomfortable. Note, by contrast, her relaxed pose.

Rucyl is a NY-based electronic musician and artist, with an impressive portfolio of interactive works.

Rucyl Mills site

As for the “Sexy Computer Nerd” reference, that’s a reference to Rucyl’s love ballad to you PHP-coding, blinking-LED-heart heartthrobs out there:

NAMM supposedly stands for the “National Association of Music Manufacturers.” It’s purportedly a trade show for music instruments and technology. But, for brief but glorious moments, “NAMM show” translates in English to “ridiculous musical stuff.” Just how ridiculous? We’re talking guitars made out of football helmets.

Just in case you think you might extract any respectability from this $299 novelty guitar, there’s more: interchangeable face masks. Multiple colors for matching your favorite team (you’ll have to provide the logos — guess they didn’t pony up for a license). A built-in speaker, just in case an amp looks too, you know, professional. And the pièce de résistance, football-shaped guitar picks.

Helmet Guitars

Any pride left? Well, how about filming a demo video playing this,(inexplicably) shirtless. Hint: do not tell, say, potential dates or job interviews “Last night, I took off my shirt and started totally wailing on my helmet guitar!” That could be interpreted in way too many ways, none of them not wrong.

Hey, at least Miesel Stringed Instruments doesn’t have any illusions. They promise the guitar “will have you rockin’ all the way from your rec room at home, college dorm, tailgate party, to the Super Bowl after party!”

Will you see anything this fun at CES? I don’t think so.

But if I sound in any way critical, it’s only because I think the Helmet Guitar can’t begin to compare with the same builder’s aquarium acoustic guitar (among others).

Tune in January 17-20 for live coverage from the NAMM show in Los Angeles, from the awesome to the awesomely strange. And stock up on donuts, because you may start craving them.

As if we’re not normally fantasizing about strange gear, electronics, t-shirts, software, and general oddities throughout most of the year, now is a special time when our thoughts turn to even more intricate rationalizations for buying great stuff for ourselves and our loved ones. If you’re looking for a last-minute gift, or just waiting until after various holidays to expand your studio, here are a few ideas. They read not only as a gift guide, but as a "Really Wonderful Things We’re Into" guide. And naturally, we don’t believe in throwaway consumption — readers on this site still avidly use Commodore 64s, after all. We’ve asked our contributors to come up with stuff they’ll treasure forever. Here are their favorites

Mike Una

Michael Una is an informant and writer for CDM on bent circuits, sound art, and electronic goodness; check out his interview last week with Beatrix*Jar and the results of the Circuit Bending Challenge.

Hip fashion for music geeks:

Moogs Not Missiles T-shirt, $20 from Etsy.com (above)

Synthi Blue Green T-shirt, $21.99 from Gear Addict @ Cafe Press

Bootsy Collins T-Shirts, $20.99 from rocktshirtspunk.com

The ways in which people can reimagine the beloved turntable seems boundless. We’ve seen bass guitar turntables, computer scratching visualizations, turntable-controlled vibrating chaise longues, and turntables embedded in tree trunks as art installations. Still, there’s more:

TurntablistPC is an ongoing art project coupling a vintage turntable with a vintage PC, creating a hybrid, record-playing server that can be controlled remotely by remote websites around the world. It’s the creation of artist Mogen Jacobsen, and it’s currently being exhibited as part of a show called Webscape at the Art Museum of West Sealand, Denmark. What? You’re not planning to pass through West Sealand this fall? The museum still wants your help: embed a piece of code, and visitors to your own website will trigger manipulations of the turntable based on geographic position.

TurntablistPC Project Page
The TurntablistPC spins again! [Networked Music Review, my new favorite source for artsy music tech!]

Thanks to our artist friend Michael Una for tipping us off. I’m not sure I’ll be building anything of this sort soon, but what I do like about it conceptually is that it returns playback devices — increasingly abstract and virtual in the age of the iPod — to the realm of mechanical instrument. I think we may see all sorts of strange, new, hybrid digital/mechanical instruments in the coming years.

Of course, if you can’t figure out how to turn a turntable into a hybrid server art installation, you can always just don your black vinyl jumpsuit and strap your turntable to your back. I think Numark’s idea here was to somehow promote their turntables, but to me, they may have stumbled onto a new, futuristic couture in which we wear heavy objects as fashion statements. And for whatever reason, I’m game! (People could, you know, come up to you … I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine sorta thing?)

Making_sound grabbed this shot and sent it to our Flickr group; thanks!